


Dreamscape

by marchingjaybird



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:45:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchingjaybird/pseuds/marchingjaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the people in Bob's life dream, except one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreamscape

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fandom Stocking on LiveJournal

Lindy dreams.

In her dreams, she is walking down endless hallways, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, bare feet slapping against floors that are not tile and not concrete but perhaps some kind porcelain which arches over her head, endless and white and buttressed by angelic carvings that all look like _him_, that all glow like _him_. Sometimes it soothes. More often, it frightens. He does things that no one should be able to do, discovers new depths of power whenever he needs them, haunts himself with a dark figment. He brought her back to life, or so everyone thinks, but Lindy wonders. She wonders if she isn't another figment of his imagination, if she isn't here so that he can dodge the guilt of what happened to her. She sleeps so much now, and only ever dreams of these white halls, endless and beautiful and sterile, and when she talks to herself or sings to herself the echoes answer her back and swell below and above and around her in glorious chorus.

Lindy dreams and wonders if she is dead.

***

Norman dreams.

In his dreams, he is powerful. Men and women look up to him, people fear him, people _listen_ to him. He is respected, he is in control, he has lives in his hand and he dispenses justice with even, cool wisdom. He knows things and he keeps secrets and he climbs, he always climbs, until he is at the top, until he is more powerful than the President, until the whole world bows down to him, until he can do whatever he wants. And what he wants is to punish them, all of them, every single person who laughed, every single person who crossed him, every person who beat him down and shoved him aside and looked at him sideways, and as he strikes them down one by one, he sees the strings on his arms and he looks up and he sees that face, that smile, those violet-clad fingers twitching as they manipulate his limbs and he turns in the bed, tangling the sheets around his legs.

Norman dreams and is frightened of himself.

***

Bob dreams.

He never remembers fully what he dreams, only that he does There are vague, half-formed images of his wife, his teammates, his friends. He presses tight against Lindy's back, arm around her slim waist, nose buried in her hair. He talks with Reed Richards and Tony Stark. He flies over New York with Carol Danvers. He goes to the sun and back, visits Attilan on the other side of the moon, dives beneath the sea and watches life unfold. He dreams all of the beautiful things that he has done and all of the beautiful things that he will do and he dreams, most of all, of Norman Osborn. Of speaking with him, watching his thin lips shape words, his expressive hands twitch and flick and grasp. There is an intensity in Norman's eyes that is hypnotic, a jagged edge on every word that he speaks, and even in dreams, Bob is fascinated by him.

Bob dreams, but The Sentry does not.

***

The Sentry wakes.

He paces down dark halls, aware in a way that Bob can never be, listening to all of the tiny sounds of the tower. He pauses outside each room, cocks his head to listen. They fuck amongst themselves, his new teammates, and he hears them at it, Moonstone and Bullseye, Bullseye and Daken, Mac Gargan and his inevitable harem of women that will not last the night. Only one room is ever quiet. Only one room ever draws him in.

There were nights, when all of this first started, just after Norman drew him back into the life, that Bob wished it was all over. He sat at the foot of his bed and clasped his knees against his chest and stared hard into the darkness, looking for things that were not there, grasping at phantasms that he had no hope of catching. It only abated when Norman was there, with that particular understanding that only a comparable madman can offer. It's the blind leading the blind now, Norman and Bob tripping gaily down a road that has no end. The Sentry recognizes this even if Bob does not, but he does what he must. Bob is the center. Bob must be kept safe.

Norman waits for him, holds out his hands, calls him Bob as he drops to his knees and crawls across the floor and licks Norman's fingers while Norman talks and soothes and he doesn't pretend to know how it works, but somehow Bob senses Norman's presence, hears his voice, feels the touch of his cool, spidery fingers. So while Norman pulls him down and opens beneath his careful fingers and grasps and gasps and grinds his teeth beneath The Sentry, Bob only knows that all is well.

The Sentry wakes so that Bob can sleep.


End file.
